


and if the stars align

by uncaringerinn



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: F/M, and lots of crying and yelling because being in love is hard, gratuitous use of the force bond, if you like pain and angst then come on in, it's super awkward because they're both inexperienced space virgins, they nail but like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 03:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13650663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncaringerinn/pseuds/uncaringerinn
Summary: Fate could paint Ben Solo with only a fracture of light, overshadowed by the darkness swirling inside him and in the same brushstroke render her a shining beacon in a desolate land. She can illuminate the waste, but the ruin is still there, unforgiving and ugly in its honesty.





	and if the stars align

_I’m out here tonight, so if you want to start a fight_

_We can get loaded on the things that I can’t change._

 

 

The world tilts on its axis and the hazy grit of restless slumber briefly clouds her vision as hazel eyes crack open. Familiar durasteel walls take the place of the jagged-cut stone of her island hut. A wave of solid heat hovers at her back.

 _Not from the fire_ , she thinks fuzzily.

She feels smothered; a strange weight at her waist slowly constricts, pulls her tighter to the inferno gathered behind her.

Rey stumbles awake all at once.

Her hand snaps down to encircle the wrist of a roving hand, but the action does nothing to stop his fingers from curling around the crest of her cloth-covered hipbone.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs into the hollow behind her ear, “Don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t understand.” Her grip tightens around his arm, “Why am I here?”

“You were having a nightmare. I couldn’t sleep for it.”

His thumb strokes over the soft skin of her abdomen, drifting just beneath her navel. It’s soothing, gentle in a way that contradicts his usual intensity.

“Why bring me here,” she asks in a small voice, rife with uncertainty, confusion. “Why hold me like this?”

 _Because we’re more than enemies_ , it’s not her thought, but it’s his feeling; tugging mercilessly at her waning restraint.

“Because I wanted to,” he states simply, aloud this time, voice pitched at a low rumble that makes arousal swirl lazily in her gut, “Because I can.”

Her heart stumbles ineptly at his words, air sticking thickly inside her throat. She feels his lips press a slow, tender kiss over her thrumming pulse and her lungs suddenly forget she needs to breathe.

They lie in silence, until he feels the need to pull at her already-unraveling threads once more.

“We could have this.”

Her mouth waters at the possibility and she swiftly brands herself a traitor within the secrecy of her own thoughts.

Her eyes slip closed and she turns in his arms. She feels that this could be a cage. A steel-toothed trap, sharp-yawning grin just waiting for her to misstep-

 _No, it’s so much more_ , Rey thinks _._

This is an understanding. A balance.

 _Home_.

She opens her eyes once more, gaze level with his sternum; his skin speckled with indiscriminate scars, nothing but constellations of previous pain, an eternity of memories he’ll never have the fortune of forgetting.

She traces ice-cold fingertips over the cord of matted flesh scraping down his right shoulder; a wound she inflicted in the snow-forests of Starkiller. He stiffens against her, nose buried in her tangle of brown hair.

Her touch glides down to the knot of scar tissue decorating his ribs; feels his nails dig self-consciously into the skin of her back.

“Does it hurt?”

“They all hurt,” he answers truthfully, before pulling her hand away from his chest. “And your fingers are freezing,” a mumble, ghosting over her temple from plush lips.

His hand engulfs her own, places her palm against the throb of his beating heart; tempo sure and steady, a siren’s call that begs her back to sleep.

Instead, she pulls her hand from his hold, rolls onto her belly and turns her face away from him. Frustration edges beneath the stretch of her skin; a raucous sensation that nearly drives her into a fury, upset that he tempts her with things she _cannot_ have.

Teeth sink into her lower lip as her anger brings the stinging itch of tears to her eyes.

She could leave if she really wanted to, could wrest control of the bond from him and be free of this pain he instills within her.

And that’s the worst of it, isn’t it? She doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t want to be rid of him. They could spend eternity twined together between the space of the stars and she would forever be content.

But guilt is persistent and destiny can be a fickle, wretched thing. Fate could paint Ben Solo with only a fracture of light, overshadowed by the darkness swirling inside him and in the same brushstroke render her a shining beacon in a desolate land. She can illuminate the waste, but the ruin is still there, unforgiving and ugly in its honesty.

When did it become her responsibility to save the man sprawled beside her?

The burden becomes crushing and she wants to burrow; pressing her cheek into a pillow that smells only of him, that soaks up her tears and stains it deep.

Time ticks by in standard minutes she doesn’t bother to count, interspersed with their quiet breathing and her errant wet sniffs as she stares blankly at the metal wall before her.

A hesitant press of warmth splays over her lower back, his hand nearly spanning the entire width of her. She swallows heavily.

There is a reverence to his touch as he soothes his fingers over the jut of her shoulder blades, the knots of her spine, the rungs of her ribs.

It’s so real and she wants it _so much_.

“You’re upset,” he murmurs softly.

Rey curls her arms beneath her, refuses to look at him, “I _hate_ it when you’re gentle. It’s so much easier when you’re angry, when you’re yelling.” She’s crying in earnest now, unable to stop the way her body shakes with her sobs, “We can’t have this, Ben.”

She’s an open wound treated with the salt and misery of nothing more than fantasy.

Their bond splits open in a bloody mess of pulp and marrow; his fury, fresh and untempered, comes spilling over. It’s a brutal, gouging pain that leaves her gasping, red seeping into the corners of her vision.

“Is that why you hide when you say it,” he asks viciously; fingers sliding up to tangle in her hair, fire bursting across her scalp as he hauls her upright. “You could never look at me and mean it.”

They’re both kneeling now; her back to his chest, an eclipse sculpted in flesh and bone.

She trembles, fists clenched at her side; nothing but stark-white knuckles and swimming muddy-green eyes.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” From jawbone to cheek, he tastes her tears with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll always give you what you want, Rey.” The words are said in a slow hiss, teeth bared and pressed against her skin.

“That’s not _true_ ,” she sobs. “You’ve given me _nothing_.”

The hand in her hair grabs for her throat; the other drifting beneath the hem of her nightgown, pressing at the damp fabric between her legs.

“ _Everything_ ,” a hoarse rasp torn from his lungs, “Everything I’ve done was for you.”

Her fists unfurl, nails raking furrows in the exposed flesh of his thigh, leaving red welts and broken skin. She shouts; a brilliant, agonizing sound dredged up from the hollow of her chest.

He shoves her knees wider with his own and in the same movement pulls the barrier of her underwear aside to press two fingers in deep. The touch is inexpert, spurred on by the slick of her arousal and his own desire to know the very heart of her.

But it’s not enough.

He slides from her, freeing himself from the briefs that contain him. His other hand, still wrapped around her throat, holds her closer as he joins them.

They don’t fit like pieces to a puzzle.

She struggles to take him in. She wants to; he can _feel_ it, hear it in the pleading whimper that sounds through her parted lips, but the initial resistance leaves her with a burning stretch and the sensation of being torn in two.

And for an eternal moment they stay locked in the purgatory of their meeting hips, neither truly sated.

Rey gives an impatient jerk of her pelvis in the same instant he presses an open palm to her abdomen.

The dam breaks.

She swallows him whole and he feels her startled cry to the bottom of his soul. It shears him to pieces.

His anger has drained, called back like a tide into a greater sea. In its absence, he only knows her despair. Helpless, hopeless, lost on a path that has yet to be forged.

She’s dissolved to wet lashes and cracked lips, a collapsing star in the throes of death itself. “I can’t save you,” she whispers, an admission of failure.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs over the sound of two hearts beating in tandem, “You were never meant to.”

**Author's Note:**

> believe it or not, but this started out as fluff and then i was tempted by satan and here we are.
> 
> okay, y'all don't know how hard it was for me not to have Kylo say, "Everything I've done, I've done for you." and then dramatically proclaim, "I move the stars for _no one_." but this is star wars and not the labyrinth, so my self-control was tested to its limits. 
> 
> a very good amount, almost a complete majority of this was inspired by It Was A Sin by the Revivalists, which is where that italicized bit in the beginning comes from. 
> 
> also, i'm sorry.


End file.
